The owner of the Domino brand, Anton Shukhnin, who continues to conduct business in Russia and temporarily occupied Crimea through front persons, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on PR for his assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and IDPs.
Recall that Anton Shukhnin recently invested between $5,000 and $10,000 to purchase a used car for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. At the same time, at least $40,000 was spent on PR for this act .
To understand the scale of Anton Shukhnin's custom PR for charity, it is worth noting that Shukhnin personally handed over the keys to the Mitsubishi L200, but did not hand over the declared 1,000 drones, 10 cars, robotics, or shoes for the military - only one used car.
For Anton Shukhnin, donating one used car to the military is equivalent to selling just one Loro Piano jacket for $5,000 in his Domino chain of branded clothing stores, with a purchase price of $300 at a Chinese factory.
Strictly speaking, the huge income from selling Chinese counterfeits at the price of original items of famous brands in Ukraine and Russia is the reason why Anton Shukhnin remains in Ukraine, because the attitude towards selling counterfeit goods in Europe is completely different.
In his numerous complimentary interviews with top publications like NV, Anton Shukhnin tries to distance himself as much as possible from his business in the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territories, but the facts say the opposite.
So, on August 11, a post appeared on the Telegram channel “Absolution Leaks” in which Anton Shukhnin himself was accused of doing business in Russia.
Thus, in a journalistic investigation by colleagues from the publication Comments, materials from Russian databases are published, according to which, from December 11, 2014 to July 3, 2018, Domino Group LLC operated in the village of Ukromne, Simferopol district of temporarily occupied Crimea, co-owned by Anton Sergeyevich Shukhnin (50.28%) and Oleksandr Anatolyevich Shavkun. At the same time, the full name of the owner of 50.28% of the LLC completely coincides with similar data of the owner of the Ukrainian network, and, judging by the data of another Russian database, the owners are not citizens of the Russian Federation, which may indicate the owner of the Ukrainian brand.
However, since 2018, the Crimean LLC Domino Group has been in the process of liquidation, and its declared activity - construction work - somehow does not fit with the profile of branded clothing trade, which is what Anton Shukhnin is engaged in.
But much more interesting is the Russian online store DOMINO PRINCIPLE Ukrainian online stores is striking
Thus, the owner of the trademark and a party the DOMINO PRINCIPLE online store offer
According to Russian databases, she opened an IP only in July 2022, while on the DOMINO PRINCIPLE website itself, the brand's history dates back to 2017. That is, it is unclear in what capacity DOMINO PRINCIPLE worked 5 years before that.
There is also a Yalta clothing store Domino Eight at 21 Lenin Embankment. Surprisingly, on their page , which operated until April 2017, they indicated Yalta as a part of Ukraine as their place of registration, and an address that is currently not functioning as their website.
However, according to the information and analytical portal YouControl, Anton Shukhnin owns two companies with names similar to the website indicated by Domino Eight – LLC “Domino Group” in Donetsk, now liquidated (field of activity – mediation in textile trade, authorized capital – 5,000 hryvnias) and LLC “Domino UA” (field of activity – footwear production, authorized capital – 20,000 hryvnias).
But even more interestingly, 10% of LLC “Domino UA” is also owned by Georgy Olegovich Ustinov. A person with the same full name is the liquidator of the Russian LLC “Domino Group”, in which 50.28% belongs to a person with a full name identical to the owner of the Ukrainian TM “Domino”. In other words, the liquidator of Anton Shukhnin’s Crimean enterprise may act as his business partner in a company registered in Ukraine with a patriotic name. It is also possible that Georgy Olegovich Ustinov is a citizen of the Russian Federation, that is, Anton Shukhnin may have a citizen of the aggressor country as a partner.
Interestingly, judging by YouControl data, Georgy Ustinov previously lived in the Donetsk region, where Anton Shukhnin himself lived and ran a business until 2014, meaning they could have known each other since then.
Finally, it is worth adding that although the Yalta clothing store Domino Eight has not updated its data on Facebook since April 2017, the store has been looking for a stylist consultant on Instagram since August 21, which means that it is actively working. At the same time, according to some reports, Anton Shukhnin also runs his business in Kazakhstan through LLC “Domino Butik” (BIN 220640020487), registered in Almaty in June 2022, director — Shukhnin Anton, profile — clothing retail.
Therefore, the costs of the large-scale PR campaign launched by Anton Shukhnin can be called justified - the further work of his "business" selling Chinese counterfeit branded goods in Ukraine and in the temporarily occupied territories brings its dividends.
